Here’s a confession: I don’t play online or mobile games unless necessary. Blame it on my being the lone manager of my little household where am often found busy juggling multiple tasks. Then in my previous career, I was a news-gathering journalist. I preferred to remove all kinds of noise or distraction when I was concentrating on a write-up. This practice has unfortunately carried on for most of my life.
Games Through Three Generations
But somehow, I could not escape from having games on my radar because of my kids. The family members in our home belong to three distinct periods. I belong to Generation X, the three older kids represent Gen Z and according to the chart, my youngest Lucia – who was born in 2010 – is a member of the so-called Generation Alpha.
I consider Pacman as the greatest console game of my era. On the other hand, my kids grew up with more sophisticated games churned out by the likes of Xbox and Play Station. Then the games shifted to online platforms so that you don’t need to buy the gadget itself. In these hard days of the lockdown in Manila, I really pity those below 16 years old because they are not allowed to go out of the house 24/7. When she’s taking a break from home schooling, my youngest daughter Lucia gets engrossed in Roblox, Minecraft and Genshin Impact. I don’t deprive her of this play time as she needs the diversion and it’s also a way of developing her creativity.
Parenting and online games
I have to agree though that parenting has become more of a challenge in this modern age because of the prevalence of games. Some or most of the time, it already overtakes the life of our kids. If we don’t watch out, they can lose sleep or neglect their studies. It’s still important for mommies to supervise the time their kids spend online instead of making the games an electronic nanny of sort.
Luckily, I chanced upon a wholesome, browser-based website which offers these really fun games and I had a good time testing it with Lucia. The site is called plays.org. You know the best thing about this website? It’s ad-free and there are no annoying pop-ups (which would have destroyed the positive experience.) There’s no need to download a separate mobile app and you don’t even have to register, Just go straight to playing! The interface is really simple which makes it easy-to-use by players of all ages. The design is old-fashioned actually. It reminded me of the Pacman era, haha.
Plays.org games
When using the website for the first time, it’s best to click on the New Games icon for the latest offerings. I wanted to take turns playing a game with Lucia and she chose Bananamania Mobile Tap Rhythm Banana Throwing Game. For this game, you need to have the correct aim and the right timing. You throw the bananas that the monkey can eat instead of a bomb that will explode on their face. I had a friendly competition with my daughter. We tried to beat each other for the top score. This reminds me of one of the positive benefits of game playing which is to encourage family bonding.
While using plays.org, I told myself I really should play more games. It makes me relax and not think of the hundred things on my to-do I tried the “grown-up games” like Typing Battle which is pretty basic. However, you can also use this game to sharpen your typing skill such as when you are applying for a job that requires typing.
Next, I tried Elon Tweets: Bitcoin + Cryptocurrency Memory Flashcard Game. Oh boy, this was quite challenging. You need to have attention to details and a retentive memory to remember the sequences and match the pairs. I think I reached a score of almost 1600. I thoroughly enjoyed this game, aside from being educational too.
The truth is, there are lots of games embedded in the website to suit different interests whether it’s music, sports, or card games like solitaire. You can even introduce math and counting to your young child. Having the games as preschool lessons is really commendable. And if you’re old-fashioned like me, you can take refuge in arcade classics like pinball, Pac-Rat or Tetra Blocks . What can I say…. plays.org rocks!
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